This week's picks

Tough week to pick a top three as there were a handful of top three-worthy releases. While that's good for comic readers, it's considerably worse for readers of this blog. As a result, I'm leaning on some old favorites here and few new entries to the list. By few, I really meant zero. But you could kind of guess that, couldn't you? You're very clever, reader.

Hawkeye 10

I've written an awful lot about Hawkeye lately so I'm not sure anyone needs me to write more. I will though. I liked this issue even if it was largely setting up the villain. Fraction keeps you entertained and the temporary artist switch to Francesco Francavilla totally works, given Francavilla's style mixed with the fire and darkness of the story. Francavilla's color palette also fits the story incredibly well so giving Matt Hollingsworth the day off works for the book too. There are some great lines for Kate and a particularly telling scene between the Hawkeyes (as well as a really nice insight into the way Kate feels about Clint when she's away from Clint). I'm going to tell you right now that the next issue, which has been teased already, is certainly going to make this list next release. It's Pizza Dog centric and billed as "Pizza Dog in 'Pizza is my Business.'" Sorry any other worthy books, that one might take all three spots.

Winter Soldier 18

Not to stop people from reading my pull list entry for the week of June 5th but it's already 2/3 decided and I haven't any idea what books are out for the entire week and CLEARLY I haven't read them yet. However, Hawkeye 11 (wherein Pizza Dog solves a murder) will be out that week and the final issue of Winter Soldier will be out. So yes, those two will almost certainly make the pull list then. So why is Winter Soldier on my pull list now? To be honest, while I was reading it I wasn't sure it would be. However, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. That happens a fair amount, particularly while I'm blogging. I like the idea of Bucky being afraid that he can live with what he's done, not being afraid that he can't. It fits his character extremely well and makes the villain of this arc more interesting. Like with Hawkeye, this issue was largely focused on establishing the villain (though, unlike Hawkeye, it wasn't a little out of place considering the next one will be the last. Story timetables getting rushed are among the saddest sights) and it does a good job of it. She's smart, she's brutal, and she's not particularly predictable. She goes out of her way to establish for Bucky that she doesn't hate him for killing her parents, or hate him at all even. That's a pretty good villain. Interested to see how this series will wrap up.

X-Men Legacy 10

I told you it was going to be all old standbys. Not that any are undeserving. I think these are all great books and there were all solid issues of great books. Right off the bat we get David INSTANTLY agreeing to a deal with the extremely powerful Xavier personality in his brain so that he can try to see the future and the ways around how he destroys the mutant race. So there's plenty to look forward to storywise there. Then David takes active steps to try to stop himself from abusing his power. This issue also establishes a villain, like the other two picks this week. However, this villain isn't villainous in any way. He's extremely unfortunate and sympathetic but he doesn't even hate mutants. He's got a cure for powers but he's not forcing it on people. It's there, if it's needed he has it, if people want it they can have it. He's very straightforward about it, he doesn't seem to be hiding anything, and he's not doing it for personal gain or a vendetta or anything. He just knows well enough that there's a high probability mutants will do serious harm to the world on accident (or on purpose). It's hard to argue against that when we know our main hero is primed to do exactly that. Interesting ideas, well-executed. Solid book just keeps getting better.



Best cover
This was a tricky one. There were two solid Francavilla covers out there, with Hawkeye being solidly in the vein of Aja's simplistic covers but still looking distinctly Francavillan. I liked the baby Iron Man of Iron Man 9 and X-Men Legacy covers are always pretty great. Superior Spider-Man was close, with the plot pretty much set up by the cover and as succinctly explained as anyone could have done. Ultimate X-Men was simultaneously technically good and haunting. I ended up choosing the other Francavilla cover largely for the great colors and the appeal of the cover itself. Even if I didn't read every Marvel book every week, if I saw this cover, I feel confident I'd pick up the book, no matter how interested I had been in it previously. That's exactly what you want a cover to do so mission accomplished. I don't think it's necessarily a cover that blows you away but it more than does it job. Can't ask for anything more than that out of a cover.

All-New X-Men 11, X-Men Legacy 10, Ultimate X-Men 26

Sorry for the delay in getting reviews out today. Free Comic Book Day (which, it occurs to me, I maybe should have advertised more on this site but we're all past that now, aren't we?) took up a considerable portion of my day.

All-New X-Men 11
Bendis (w) and Immonen and von Grawbadger (a) and Gracia (c)

I've been trying to narrow down some of my problems with this title and I think I'm making some progress. It doesn't make me like the book any more, it just helps me to try to figure out and point to a couple of real problems that I have instead of just shouting at this book. I've expressed my problems already with the time travel mess, but let's cover that again real quickly. It feels a little like, between this book and Age of Ultron, Bendis has just gotten his hands on some sci-fi and is trying to introduce groundbreaking ideas about time travel that aren't so much groundbreaking as they are well-trodden. Let's move away from that as quickly as we got into it though, moving instead to characters. I feel like no character seems to care what they're doing from one moment to the next so no character has a real arc to go through. It's why Wolverine started off threatening to execute young Scott and now just gets in people's faces. It's why Kitty Pryde thought that Beast was stupid for bringing the kids here, then offered to be their teacher, and is mad at Beast again now for bringing the kids here. It's why Beast brought the kids here and inexplicably now won't send them back. I get that the kids have said they want to stay here. I understand that. I even can understand an argument saying that Kitty has made the best of their decision to stay here and has offered to teach them to help them out if they're going to be staying here anyway. But I don't buy, for one second, that these guys couldn't have sent the kids back right off the bat. It goes beyond suspension of disbelief to genuinely impacting feelings on the story. When the whole story is hinged around the decision that children made to let the children stay, it's hard to ignore the fact that the adults 100% should have sent those kids back and were totally capable of it. Add to that the fact that EVERY ADULT seems to think that's true but never does anything about it, again, despite being capable of it.
The other problem right now is the same problem that I tend to have with Bendis, as stories get carried on far past the point of being interesting and just linger. I think that the same thing is happening in this book and, worse than that, between this book and Uncanny X-Men. So we're getting a lot of the same story across both books right now and it's just...it's not interesting. Maybe that's on me. Maybe I counted myself out too early and now I'm nitpicking. I don't know. I feel like certain parties are phoning it in on this book and I can't say I'm not one of them right now.

X-Men Legacy 10
Spurrier (w) and Davidson (a) and Rosenberg (a)

I like seeing different corners of the Marvel Universe, people and civilians we haven't seen before and getting an greater understanding of how the world outside of the superhero community works. In this case, we look at a scientific institute that is also a charity and whose founder is against mutants, but in a very specific and different way. Though he's lost several limbs and been paralyzed in mutant attacks before, he doesn't hate mutants in general. Instead of the normal anti-mutant spiel we normally get from villains, he's totally reasonable, even if he deserves not to be. David is expecting a little more out of him, in fact, because it's his institute that provided the pills a few issues ago to the Church of the Happy Host. The founder, Marcus Glove, truly seems to regret that fringe groups like that one got their hands on his mutant cure and are using it to promote extremism. Glove is perfectly frank about its uses and about what he believes and it's not unreasonable. He understands that mutants might be the next evolutionary step but he wholeheartedly believes that mutants are set to destroy the planet at some point. He's not necessarily wrong. Obviously it's hard to argue definitively that they will (though David rather agrees with him right now...more on that in a moment), but the signs seem to point that way. His pill blocks the brain from using its mutation. Nothing too painful, a little bit experimental and, Glove isn't shy to admit, clinical brain damage so it's certainly risky. But Glove comes off as a legitimately good guy who truly believes in what he's doing and has no reason not to. He's not forcing it on anyone, it's just an option. And David wants it. David made a deal with the Xavier in his head to see into his future and see if he really is destined to doom the mutant race. Spoilers: he is. There are very limited futures in which he doesn't doom the race and this pill seems to be one of them. The deal he made with the Xavier though is that Xavier gets control of his body for one minute at an undisclosed point later on. Exciting.
So yes, there are things building in X-Men Legacy and this is the first multi-issue arc that we've faced (even if it's just these two issues) since the first long arc. Blindfold kind of knows about it too though, as she's been using Cerebro to follow David without his knowledge. Will she stop him from shutting down his powers? Will she let him do it? Is she going to be more angry by the fact that he's trying to de-mutant himself or more angry that he's reading her brother's book? All sorts of questions and all sorts of places to go.

Ultimate X-Men 26
Wood (w) and Asrar and Vlasco (a) and Bellaire (c)

The Natural Resources arc continues to ramp up as General Ross comes to Utopia to inform Kitty that the US government has overruled President Cap's declaration of freedom for the mutants. General Ross doesn't want to attack the compound unprovoked and wants to go and see the place for himself and look Kitty in the eye as he tells her. He does so and it shakes him up, seeing someone who's the same age and kind of looks a bit like his niece. More than that, though, he's shaken up as an anti-mutant soldier decides that Kitty is a threat to attack Ross and fires on her. The bullet ricochets off of Ross, who tries to save Kitty, and she phases through it and through the ground. But now the terms are out there and Kitty knows what the government and army are expecting her to do. As a result, she welcomes back the more militant branch of mutants into her camp. That group, by the way, is getting more and more interesting as it seems like Psylocke is pulling all of the strings and not letting anyone know what her real purpose is. On top of that Jean is getting a little more supportive of Utopia and realizes that Tian's success hinges on the success of Utopia. She continues to go out to the woods to make calls back to Tian but Rogue has seen her calling home now. Lots of drama still out on the horizon.
The issue is simultaneously important for the future and interesting to read now. We're seeing more and more of Psylocke as she plays her own games to some mysterious end. It seems everything is going her way, as she has her hands on Mach Two and Jimmy, among others. The Tian plot is interesting and I like the idea that Jean kind of understands, despite her possible feelings about Utopia, that the two mutant civilizations are linked. Now we'll get to see how Utopia defends itself. Kitty is still insistent on a peaceful engagement but understands it might not be so easy. She's hoping they can simply defend themselves and not attack so that they can still prove mutants aren't a threat to everyday life while simultaneously not being walked all over. There are a lot of great and real questions in this series that are worth talking about and are good things to wonder about in a world that has mutants. Another good series.

Indestructible Hulk 7, Red She-Hulk 65

Indestructible Hulk 7
Waid (w) and Simonson (a) and Mossa (c)

Fake out, you guys. Hulk didn't pick up Thor's hammer, Thor's hammer picked up Hulk. Apparently Thor called to Mjolnir right as Hulk attempted to pick it up, sending him along for the ride back to Thor. Fortunately, Thor doesn't seem bothered by Hulk's sudden appearance and finds it pretty hilarious that the monster rode the hammer back to Thor's side. They fight off a few more Frost Giants while a pair of the giants in another area discover the portal back to present day Midgard. They try to break in but are forced out by Maria Hill and Coulson as Hill blows the portal's control panel, sealing the Frost Giants (and the team) in Jotunheim for the time being. One of the Frost Giants, dismayed by being blocked from Midgard, casts an illusion over himself to appear as one of the team members and rejoins the group, set on returning with them. With the imminent danger subsiding, Hulk reverts back to Banner and he explains what's happening, including the fact that they've travelled in time, before they begin to speculate on why the portal is gone. Meanwhile, Leucenstern is back at the lab trying to restore the portal and get the team home under the watchful and threatening eye of Maria Hill. Banner reveals to team member Patricia that he knows she's depressed and he's trying to pull her out of the depression, though she reveals that she's terminally ill and is dedicated to suicide by Hulk.
So a bit of a fake out after the last issue's thrilling conclusion but I suppose it's for the best. I'm not sure any of us really want to see Hulk with the ability to wield Thor's unbelievably powerful hammer. Seems like bad news all around that. Still, can't say it wouldn't have been interesting. Regardless, we get a couple of nice interactions between Banner and Thor and we get a great picture of the young Thor, thrilled by the challenge of the Frost Giants and endlessly amused by the actions of humans. It's a neat little look into why Thor is so protective of Earth, even from the days before he really split time between Asgard and Midgard. On top of that we get another look at Banner as the scientific leader of the expedition and his methods as both a scientist and as a leader. As this book seems more interested in creating Banner as a character than it is in showing Hulk all the time, these interactions are important. The way that he views his team and the way he acts around them both give us a deeper look into his character. What suicide by Hulk could entail is worth checking in for again.

Red She-Hulk 65
Parker (w) and Pagulayan, Height, and Alves (a) and Staples (c)

Another sort of fake out, though this one is perhaps more on me. Despite all my hyping it up, Red She-Hulk and Machine Man have not been transported to another dimension with Mt. Rushmore replaced by the four carved heads of Dr. Doom, Loki, Red Skull, and Ultron. Instead, the Terranometer simply sent them to Mt. Rushmore in our dimension which houses another important piece of the Terranometer, one protected by a likeness of each of the four villains, who have all at some point attempted to enter and had an imprint of themselves taken and left to guard the place. Now the image of their heads on Mt. Rushmore may fluctuate on to the rockwall if someone knows what they're looking at. It's a little complicated, but it also gives a chance for our two heroes to fight copies of four of the biggest villains in the Marvel Universe (arguably the four biggest villains). Not one of them is nearly as strong as his real-life counterpart, though they contain the same knowledge and experience, as they have to dedicate part of their processing power to keeping their own personality separated from the machine. Red She-Hulk takes down Dr. Doom, Loki, and Red Skull with some difficulty while Machine Man outwits and outlasts Ultron in a battle that takes place in cyberspace. Finally they enter the Terranometer and discover how the four outside were created (Tesla's version of self-defense for the Terranometer). Machine Man plugs himself in and is quickly overwhelmed by the power and the feeling it leaves him with. He's unable to disconnect from they system, but Red She-Hulk is soon distracted by the four villains' return but now meshed together as one stronger villain, calling itself the Yologarch. She confuses it with some logic, telling it that it's still a slave to its creator, which it denies. However, to kill Red She-Hulk would be to serve the Terranometer still, so it decides not to do it and flies away, swearing revenge on her. Red She-Hulk pulls Aaron out of the Terranometer and passes out to be awakened five hours later, as Betty, as they drive away to the Florida Everglades, home to the nexus of all realities according to what Aaron saw. Meanwhile, She-Hulk has joined up with Fortean who has also accepted the Thinker's help in improving the Echelon forces. Next issue promises a showdown between Red She-Hulk and regular-type She-Hulk in the midst of Man-Thing. Lotta hyphens here.
So not exactly an alternate dimension which is alternately too bad and pretty swell with the addition and the freedom of this new and potentially very dangerous villain to the Marvel roster of villains. The secrets of the Terranometer are still mostly unrevealed but at least Machine Man seems to have a better sense than he did before of what the machine is used for. Also, She-Hulk's arrival finally seems imminent after having it teased for a couple of issues. Jen is a reasonable lady and She-Hulks are more reasonable by nature than their male counterparts so it's still up in the air whose side she'll land on when Echelon comes calling on Betty. Two Hulks and Machine Man teamed up would make a formidable enemy for anyone, even tailor-made Echelon super soldiers. Exciting things coming up.

Winter Soldier 18, X-Factor 255

I know what you're thinking: Tim, you're so good at this blog and you almost always have a reason for choosing a couple of books to be reviewed together, as imperceptible as those reasons may be to us, the wonderful readers! But we are having some trouble understanding this team-up, especially so early in the review week. Friday is too early to have paired up the other books and have these left as the remainders and you LIKE both of these books, you would work to pair them up with things first. In fact, there were several more X-books this week you could have paired X-Factor up with, though we admit we too would have been hard-pressed to figure out with what to pair Winter Soldier. Well, I have some bad news for you upbeat and very complimentary reader. This is "sad day" in the review week, wherein I review two cancelled Marvel books as they live out the rest of their sentence. That's right, though we knew Winter Soldier was cancelled, we've learned recently that the long running and nearly always entertaining X-Factor has also been cancelled. As a proponent of both of these books, I'm depressed over this most recent news, but I haven't the time for a proper retrospective this week and will have to dive into it next week. Instead, I'm writing an overly long introduction to my reviews for this week's issue of each book.

Winter Soldier 18
Latour (w) and Klein (a and c)

Just as with Hawkeye this week, we get a background for the villain of this arc in this, the penultimate issue of Winter Soldier. Tesla Tarasova was, as we know, a child when the Winter Soldier killed her father, a brilliant scientist who focused his work on cosmic radiation. A very smart girl, Tesla was raised in the same horrible orphanage/school that Bucky destroyed a few issues ago. We get a deeper look into life as a child of that institute and find it every bit as disturbing as we may have speculated last time. Every child there is trained to be a killer, a whole school of little Winter Soldiers to end up sold to the highest bidder. However, Tesla was different. Though she still excelled in training and was extraordinarily intelligent, she obsessed over her father's work on cosmic rays and eventually managed to expose herself to some, creating the Electric Ghost. Now her goal seems to be to unleash the same potential unleashed in her in the people like her, people without fear. Instead of seeing James as the man who killed her father and, as one would assume, hating him for it, she sees him simply as being like her, someone without fear and with power to be unleashed. She immediately deduces that he's fighting against his past not because he can't live with what he's done, but because he can live with what he's done. That's a great idea for Winter Soldier. Bucky has, since his return to the Marvel U, been haunted by everything he's done but he has never hidden from it. In fact, he's fully aware of what his past has wrought, including a pretty great arc (when he was the acting Captain America) where he had to fight people from his past and decidedly used the Winter Soldier costume to inspire fear and recognition. The fact that he still wears that costume is very telling of who he is. He fights against his past, but the question has never been raised about why he's insistent on still being the Winter Soldier. Is he simply not willing to shy away from his past? Is he upset about his past and needs to atone for it as the same person? Maybe. But the question itself of whether or not there's a part of him that can live with it is interesting.
So the Electric Ghost doesn't hate Bucky. In fact, she sees a kindred spirit in him and thanks him for changing her life in such a way that she's now here, controlling satellites and making people fear her or overcome any fears. She's so thankful, in fact that she makes out with him at the end of the issue. She doesn't like that he's still chained to Natasha and his past, chained to something like any other normal person. Where will that lead next issue for her and for Bucky? What will become of Bucky after this ends? Is this a way for Bucky to cut his losses with Natasha? I kind of hope not. I love them as a couple and hope that eventually things settle themselves out. But there are all sorts of interesting questions being raised and I worry that one remaining issue might not be enough to answer them all.

X-Factor 255
David (w) and Kirk and Leisten (a) and Milla (c)

The Hell on Earth arc continues (admittedly somewhat regrettably) as Mephisto wins the day. He's defeated all the other Hell Lords while Tier waffled about in deciding to try to kill the Lords or not. Now Mephisto has won and has set himself up as the new ruler of all the hells and is seemingly unstoppable, except for Tier who finally chooses to take the fight to Mephisto. Meanwhile, Monet and Guido continue their fight, both physically and verbally. Guido notices that Monet is getting more shaken up by the fight than she should be and comments on it. She denies it and continues to fight with him, eventually leading to him punching her a little too hard (though, he notes, not hard enough that it should hurt her as badly as it does) and, well, killing her. So that was a shocker. Oh yes, spoilers and all that. Look, it's a review blog and my formula has stayed more or less the same, so there are quite a few spoilers in each review. Maybe I should make more of a note of that. I'll take it into consideration. Maybe clump the summary together more and then leave the analysis separate. We'll see. ANYWAY, Monet just died, what are we talking about? That's a pretty big deal. Of course, people have come back from the dead before in this book (and recently, at that) so it's not out of the question that she'll be revived. HOWEVER, with the book facing cancellation and Peter David never looking for the book to get stale, maybe this is the real deal. Also, one of the cool things (and one of the things I'll miss most about X-Factor) about this book is that no one who stars in this book really appears anywhere else in the Marvel Universe. Someone might make an appearance, or the team might even pop by in an event or something to see what's happening, but they seem to be the largest self-contained team in the 616 and the most self-contained characters in the Marvel Universe. What I'm getting at here, in my long-winded way, is that Monet could very well die here and the Marvel Universe at large would not even need to take notice. It's not like a fake-out Cap death where he's on 90 teams and in his own book so we know he's probably fine. It's Monet in one book on one team and, frankly, if you asked 90% of the 616 who she was they probably wouldn't know unless they were particularly well-informed. That's where this book pretty much leaves off. OH, and Jamie is still a goat-headed demon and Mephisto needs to turn that around stat because Madrox is great.
I alluded to not particularly liking that this arc is continuing at the start of this review and I stand by that. It's a major arc and I guess, when shaped this way, it definitely could have a final story feel to it. Major characters have returned, major characters are dying, major events are happening, etc. Still, it hasn't been my favorite story from X-Factor and I'm going to be more sad if the book ends on this note. I'll say again, though, that's personal preference. It's entirely possible some diehard X-Factor fans are loving this arc and loving what the team is going through right now and are contentedly sighing at the final outcome for our beloved second-tier heroes. Sadly, I'm not one of those people and if the book ends with this arc I'll feel a little empty inside.
I plan on doing a real sort of retrospective on X-Factor at some point but this week is a little busy and I already have my Monday post planned and it's a little more time sensitive than whatever my thoughts on X-Factor are, especially when my thoughts on X-Factor are pretty well documented here.

Iron Man 9, Iron Man 258.1, Iron Man: The Coming of the Melter

Iron Man 9
Gillen (w) and Eaglesham (a) and Guru eFX (c)

GUYS it's Iron Man day! For no particular reason! Just kidding, it's totally because the movie's coming out tomorrow. I'm planning to see it tonight so what better way to get excited than to review one the three Iron Man books that came out this week purely by chance! Ha, just kidding, I have a sneaking suspicion that Marvel knows what they're doing, considering two thirds of my Marvel calendars have Iron Man on them for the month of May (the third one is the Thing because why not?).
Okay, so let's dive into it then. Iron Man is on the search for 451 after 451 destroyed the Voldi (or condemned the Voldi to death. Semantics). The Guardians of the Galaxy (with whom he's currently touring the universe) drop him off at a little place called "Hope's Pustule," which, Starlord informs Tony, is not an ironic name. There Tony tracks down Death's Head, the bounty hunter he had to fight in the Voldi arena and who had managed to escape the destruction of the planet. The pair claim no hard feelings and Tony hires Death's Head to help him track down 451. The two talk about Death's Head's great ship and Tony makes a few Star Wars references before they find a lifeless Badoon ship that Death's Head's ship's sensors have brought them to. While exploring the ship, they find that all of the Badoon aboard apparently committed suicide, which isn't exactly a Badoon custom. 451 is indeed on board and Tony hopes to ambush him as he turns a corner. Unfortunately, Death's Head has been working for 451 all along and his goal was simply to bring Tony to him. On top of that, 451 has hacked PEPPER and left Tony defenseless. 451 hopes to talk to Tony but offers no explanation for the destruction of the Voldi (he also says that they were more or less living on borrowed time hiding from the Celestials and Phoenix and everyone else, though he does accept some blame). Without much choice, Tony agrees to listen to 451, who pulls out an old film cannister. On the film is Tony's dad, Howard Stark, explaining that he's done questionable things to help the world and, more specifically, to help Tony. Then 451 comes into frame beside Howard.
The plot thickens as we get more of an understanding of some of the power that 451 wields and far more questions arise in total, adding to our sizable total already being asked. Hard to speculate too much about where the arc and the series are going but it's nice to see Tony have to deal with his daddy issues a bit more and to find out that Howard is far from a saint. We'll be able to talk more about that when we know exactly what it is Howard is alluding to, but it's worth mentioning upfront that Tony seems to have a very strange relationship with his father as it is. Fun to see Gillen's take on it.

Iron Man 258.1
Michelinie (w) and Ross and Layton (a) and Sotomayor (c)

When I read the description of this book, I was pretty much able to write the entire review in my head. Old Iron Man pros David Michelinie and Bob Layton return to the armored Avenger to give their take on John Byrne and John Romita Jr's Armor Wars II (Michelinie and Layton were the minds behind the first). The Armor Wars were pivotal books in Iron Man history that, like most other Iron Man books not pertaining to his drinking, revolved around someone stealing the Iron Man tech and selling it to bad guys. I rather like that Gillen has sent Tony to space if only because his armor isn't that big a deal in space and he didn't bring many extras with him so no one is that eager or able to steal it. In this book, which will be continued next week allegedly, a biomass that was taken out of Tony (and connected to computer chips and nanites in his body) gains sentience and access to Tony's computer systems. He then kills a doctor that was helping Tony and reveals himself to be what Tony should have been, according to him.
So what I was going to say immediately after reading the description is "nice read, definitely worthwhile for old school Iron Man fans to pick up and relive the magic but not too relevant to today's Marvel." I think that still applies, but I will admit to being surprised by the ending. The reveal of the "Iron Mind," Tony's connected biomass, was a solid twist. Why he thinks he's what Tony should have been is worth exploring, so we find ourselves with a nice little read that's definitely worthwhile for old school Iron Man fans to pick up and relive the magic, but isn't too relevant to today's Marvel, though it may be building into a somewhat compelling story nonetheless.

Iron Man: The Coming of the Melter
Gage (w) and Lim (a) and Sotocolor (c)

I don't know what to make of this book. I had some ideas about it when I saw it on the list this week (maybe it's like Iron Man 258.1, a former Iron Man writer stepping in to tell a story that hasn't been told before) or maybe it's an Iron Man movie tie-in (though I was pretty sure the Melter wasn't appearing in the movie; I guess I'll find out tonight starting at 9 PM). Maybe it's an easy-to-read story for new readers interested in Iron Man but unwilling to start with Gillen's far-different-than-the-movies arc or maybe it's a quickly/cheaply produced book trying to cash in on the movie's arrival. After reading it, I'm at a bit of a loss. I'm something of a Christos Gage fan, as he was born and raised in my home state and used to go to one of my comic book stores. I also quite liked his Union Jack mini-series several years back and reluctantly enjoyed his Avengers Academy title. He has a weird role in Marvel, though, and sometimes he gets books like this which leave more questions about what it's doing than what it's done. Let's start with plot. The Melter shows up and interrupts a press conference Tony is holding to startle and defeat Tony in quick combat in front of cameras before telling the press that he'll be selling his new weapon to the highest bidder soon, after another display. He turns up against War Machine a few days later and also defeats War Machine. Tony and Rhodey team up to try to figure out who's behind the Melter armor, which leads to the by-the-book detective Rhodey doing things his way while off-the-rails detective Tony does things his way. Neither comes up with a perfect solution but they reconvene with their information to figure it out and eventually track down and stop Melter. They each agree that, while they have their differences, they're stronger working together than apart.
Who was this book meant for? I would say it's meant to try to let children read a comic book about Iron Man before or after the big movie comes out, but I don't think kids will be particularly entertained by a villain they won't see in the movie and will certainly not be entertained by the random crime procedural in the middle of the book. Anyone older than children, though, will be somewhat bored by the issue and will find the explicitly delivered moral trite and a bit obnoxious. I don't think this would attract new readers into reading more comics and it will just confuse older readers. Weird release, other than to hopefully make a few quick books. That kind of does fit, though. Gage also wrote the recent movie tie-in limited series for Iron Man so maybe part of his role now is to churn out the easily and quickly produced books to make a couple extra dollars. Worth missing. Like, it's actively worth missing, not just okay if you miss it.

Hawkeye 10, Superior Spider-Man 9

Hawkeye 10
Fraction (w) and Francavilla (a and c)

David Aja takes a day off as we get an origin story for new villain assassin the Clown. Mixed in with his tragic story as a young boy whose family owned a circus in a war-torn land is what's happening in the present day, wherein young Kate Bishop has run afoul of the creepy assassin. The Clown is attending a party Kate's father is throwing and, being the young socialite she is, she is forced to attend as well. As the two talk (she's interested in him from across the room as someone who doesn't look like her father's business partners), the audience is privy to the Clown's backstory. His parents were killed when the circus was burned down. As he and his brother Janek grew older, they learned to fend for themselves more, eventually even putting on plays for some tracksuits (presumably the same organization as our villainous tracksuits who had protected them a little earlier on). However, their somewhat more peaceful existence is interrupted when a bomb drops on the abandoned subway they were performing in. The tracksuits in question are killed, as is Janek, leaving young Kazi alone. That's where everything changed for him, sending him down the path of an assassin. He doesn't share all of this with Kate, obviously, but he shares his feelings about his job, saying that he loves what he does but that he came from a real hellhole (that's important hang on to that bit). His ticket out of hell was when he was contacted by the tracksuits and offered bundles of money. When she asks where he's from, he says "I told you. I came from Hell." As astute readers will know, this is also what he said to Grills before killing him last issue and again at the end of this issue (Fraction loves playing with time). Kate ends up going to see Clint as the end of the issue nears and finds him still sulking and having trouble shooting arrows accurately. Kate sidles up next to him and shoots her own, right down the target. She tries to get him to talk and he snaps at her, which she refuses to put up with. She shoots another arrow through her first arrow and leaves, calling him a clown (HA). Then we get the scene from last issue again, as Grills tells Hawkeye that if he's afraid that "she" doesn't want to see him again, he should writer her a letter. Last issue, it sounded like that "she" was Jessica. Is it? Or is it Kate? Only Grills seems to know and the secret dies with him all over again as the Clown kills him.
So an interesting backstory, for sure, for the Clown that is at once scary and sympathetic. There's also a lingering sense of fear throughout the issue as Fraction does not attempt to hide the fact that Kate is talking to Kazi at the party, who we know is out to kill Hawkeye and anyone close to him. We know it from the get-go so it's nerve-wracking to watch their interaction, waiting for him to attack Kate and suspecting he might as he watches her enter Clint's building. Good suspense, good story, tight background, and still some great character moments out of Kate particularly but also between Kate and Clint. The great thing this series has done is making us still love Hawkeye but forcing us to ask why we do. He's the everyman of the Avengers, sure, but he's not entirely likable. On top of that, everyone knows it. Even Clint doesn't like himself. He's a bundle of problems and the series wants us to take that seriously, not as some throwaway trait. Another good issue.

Superior Spider-Man 9
Slott (w) and Stegman (a) and Delgado (c)

Doc Ock has found Peter lurking in his brain (that "his" can be read with either name) and is determined to put a stop to it. The Peter in his brain seems to be the sum total of his memories, a Peter created out of the attachment to Peter's memories that Doc kept around in case he should need them. Knowing this is too risky, Doc has decided to purge all of those memories to be on the safe side. Peter fights back as he tries to set the machine up and Doc Ock uses his neural transmitter to send himself into the memories, attacking Peter on Peter's home turf. The two fight, first as Doc Ock and Peter, with Peter calling on the memories of all of his loved ones to give him strength and Doc calling on the memories of all of his fears to weaken him. Then Peter changes into Spider-Man to compete against Doc who, in turn, changes into his Spider-Man. They fight for a while physically and verbally, with Peter telling Doc that his methods are not heroic and that he's stepped so far off the line of power and responsibility. Doc counters this by asking Peter why he tried to stop Doc from saving the little girl's life and eventually forcing Peter to answer that he almost blew it because he didn't want Doc to get the neural transmitter so he wouldn't find Peter lurking in his brain. Doc says it almost cost the little girl her life and Peter backs off for a minute, giving Doc the in he needs. He defeats Peter and we're left with the memory-Peter forgetting his own name as his memory world crashes in around him. Doc emerges from the machine claiming victory.
Admittedly, this series has taken a turn I didn't expect. This is Spider-Man we're talking about. The guy who is Marvel's headliner. Let's take a step back and think about that because I think maybe these nine issues have created some separation from that fact. This is one of Marvel's top heroes and probably the most well-known hero Marvel has (definitely before Phase I of the movies, but maybe even still). And he died and was replaced by his enemy. That's where we are right now. And now the series has seemingly purged Peter's way back. Of course, the door may not be closed yet and, though I'm a little taken aback by how abruptly memory-Peter's story ended, I fully expect Peter to re-emerge at some point but the story isn't finished yet. Doc Ock is still in control of Peter's body and Peter is now nowhere to be seen. Risky moves through the last four+ months for Slott now as he continues to keep readers guessing about where he'll go next. I guess we'll just have to keep reading.

Age of Ultron 7, Thanos Rising 2

Age of Ultron 7
Bendis (w) and Peterson, Pacheco, and Martinez (a) and Mounts and Villarrubia (c)

Guys, if you go back to the past and kill someone, the future changes! That seems to be the lesson of this story and, in particular, these few issues. What a twist that no one saw coming! Except that it's so prevalent in science fiction that there's already a term for when this very thing happens and it is used commonly, despite the fact no one in our lifetime has ever gone back in time and killed someone.
So yes, I continue to be a bit bitter about Age of Ultron. It might even come off sounding a little hypocritical, considering how much I'm enjoying Dark Avengers and preparing to enjoy Red She-Hulk. Those are different. We're looking into alternate dimensions there, where something has happened in the real history of the place that changed it. It's a nice hypothetical situation asking things like "what if Hank Pym had died early into his research?" and then giving us some sort of answer in a universe where that's the way things are. Here, in the main Marvel Universe, we all know that things are going to be reset and a couple things might be a little different, but by and large this hypothetical situation isn't fully realized, just a slight diversion from the main path. Then we end up back on the main path. Woo. Thanks for the ten issue "major event."
So yes, Wolverine and Sue return to the present to find that EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED. It's a lot of "gee, what's all this? This wasn't here before..." for a bit of time, then they get attacked by the Defenders, a team of heroes comprised of Cap with a Nick Fury eyepatch, Doc Strange, Thing, a smarter Hulk, Janet Van Dyne in a costume that's a cross between Captain Marvel and the Wasp, Wolverine in old-school costume/Daken costume, Starlord, and Cyclops/Cable (dying to hear how that happened). Wolverine and Sue are eventually taken down and Doc Strange says they have to go to "him," which Colonel America (for real) doesn't want to do. However, "he" shows up anyway, a version of Tony Stark controlling tons of Iron Man armors and looking more cybernetic than human. Where will this lead next time? When will this all eventually go away and be restored? Only time can tell (issue 10).

Thanos Rising 2
Aaron (w) and Bianchi (a) and Svorcina (c)

Thanos left the last issue slaughtering a heap of lizards and now we find him no long averse to the idea of killing. However, he does it for science, not for joy. He's certainly intelligent, learning faster than he can be taught. However, the existential questions of life bother him and he has no idea where to start looking for those. So he looks inside a lot of different creatures, than finally inside the people of his planet. As he tries to find something that can tell him what he is and what his purpose is, the mysterious girl from the last issue, the one who nudged him in the direction of killing the lizards, continues to watch him work. He twice tries to express love for her and twice he's rejected. She's happy he's letting his inner nature out (though he initially denies a joy in killing) but she wants nothing to do with him by way of love. We learn a little about Titan too, as narration tells us that no one had ever been murdered there before Thanos was born. He reveals later that he's killed 17 people. Mostly children but a few professors on occasion. This issue ends with his admission that he finds joy in killing, if only because killing lets him feel close to someone, lets him stop feeling alone for a moment. So he's determined that maybe the issue is in love and in his makeup and need for love. The only place he can find love and answer questions about his makeup? His mother, who he has strapped to his dissection table now.
The tale of Thanos is getting darker quickly. It's well paced so far; it's a four issue mini and definitely feels like, if we keep ramping up the creepiness exponentially, it could lead to the Thanos we know today. The biggest drama and intrigue in the continuation of this series will be in seeing how this boy, who wants answers about why he has to be this way and what purpose he serves, will become the all-powerful and pretty murder-hungry Thanos. Hopefully it goes a different way than saying "he just wants to be loved" and I think it will. It could go in the existential route, with Thanos deciding that no one really has a purpose and he's just the sociopath to prove it. However, the best option seems to be to let Jason Aaron tell the story and allow him to guide us through the history of the cosmic supervillain who is rapidly re-emerging on the scene after his surprise cameo in The Avengers. With Guardians of the Galaxy on the table as a new book and a new upcoming movie, we're moving Marvel back into the cosmic realm and who better to usher us there than Thanos, who will also headline the next major Marvel event, Infinity. It's interesting to get to dive a little deeper into his history to see why he is what he is, if we indeed will see that.